How to Spring Clean Your Home the Environmentally Responsible Way

It’s spring time! What better way to ring in fresh air and liven up your home than getting rid of all that old dusty stuff you don’t need anymore. To help you get motivated to zen out your home, here are a few helpful tips on what you can do to start.

Pick a spot you’ve been thinking about clearing out

For many of us, this could be our closet, garage, or shed. Whatever the spot, just pick one and start organizing your things into two piles: the Keep Pile and the Discard Pile.

If you find yourself caught up about decisions on what to keep and what to throw away, here are some questions you can consider to help with your home cleaning process:

When was the last time I actually used it?

Does it serve more than one purpose?

Do I like it?

How much is it worth to me today?

After asking yourself these questions, if you find you haven’t touched or used the item in question for over a year, it’s a good indication that you should get rid of it.

Be sure to vacuum and dust out the space to get rid of that old stale smell. Then rearrange and put away everything you want to keep.

Discarded items can either be donated to a charity or second-hand store. If you’re strapped for cash, you can organize a garage sale. You could also use websites such as, thredup.com and ebay.com to sell your old clothes or any other possessions that may be of value to another person.

Not all trash can be easily thrown away in the trash can. So before you decide on dumping all your trash items, make sure to be environmentally responsible and dispose of hazardous materials and old technology accordingly.

Disposing hazardous materials the right way

Materials such as paint thinners, light bulbs, batteries, or even old medicines are considered hazardous waste. When in doubt, if your item in question can harm any living organism or the environment then it may be considered a hazardous material. To dispose of these items the right way, don’t just throw them away in your trash can. Go to your city’s website and check out information about how to get rid of these materials. Most communities will have easy to follow home pickup systems for cases like these.

Disposing of old technology the right way

If you want to throw away your home appliances, cameras, computers and TVs – there are options out there that you can use to dispose of them in a safe and environmentally responsible way. Best Buy for instance, will charge $100 to pick up old appliances. They will also destroy CPU drives to protect privacy and will even send raw materials back to the manufacturers for recycling. Best Buy isn’t the only option out there to dispose of your old technology. There are many other options, check out pcmag.com’s article on “How to Recycle Your Technology” for more options.

However you choose in going about with clearing up the clutter in your home this spring season, remember to throw away wisely.